Warner Bros/Joss Whedon/Ray Fisher Justice League

[SecretWarrior]

Fisher praised Whedon genuinely at the SDCC panel. Of course he took back those words lately. But you can tell from that Fisher wasn’t clashing with Whedon or Johns all the time. He obviously made a compromise sometime during the reshooting. So Johns might think despite the creative differences we had at first, “we’re good now”. After all, it’s a common thing that people have creative differences and they reach an agreement at last.

Actors are contractually forbidden from expressing negative opinions about a film before it comes out and for a short while afterward in order to not hurt box office sales. Studios don't want unsatisfied actors doing press tours saying the movie is crap. Brad Pitt got in trouble for this once, and the Game of Thrones cast felt uncomfortable talking about the writing for Season 8 before it came out. After GoT had concluded, they shared their real opinions.

Did the actors even see the final cut of the film by SDCC? Did Fisher have enough experience to form an opinion on Whedon's directorial style? Justice League was his first film. Ben Affleck talks about how Kevin Smith did things directors normally don't do, like giving specific acting cues to the actors, which skewed his perception of directors on later projects.

[kingaliencracker]

Actors are contractually forbidden from expressing negative opinions about a film before it comes out and for a short while afterward in order to not hurt box office sales. Studios don't want unsatisfied actors doing press tours saying the movie is crap. Brad Pitt got in trouble for this once, and the Game of Thrones cast felt uncomfortable talking about the writing for Season 8 before it came out. After GoT had concluded, they shared their real opinions.

Did the actors even see the final cut of the film by SDCC?

Fisher's contract is still active according to WB so if there is a clause in there that prevents him from speaking ill about a film or films, he's already violated that.

[SecretWarrior]

Fisher's contract is still active according to WB so if there is a clause in there that prevents him from speaking ill about a film or films, he's already violated that.

How did it work for Star Wars? Different studio, yes, but weren't the actors for the sequel trilogy complaining about the second film before the third came out? Why would Fisher still not be able to complain about the first Justice League? That might go against industry custom to have a contract that protective for so long. Other Justice League actors have complained about the film too, like Ben Affleck, so I don't think Fisher is violating contract by speaking about Justice League now.

[kingaliencracker]

How did it work for Star Wars? Different studio, yes, but weren't the actors for the sequel trilogy complaining about the second film before the third came out? Why would Fisher still not be able to complain about the first Justice League? That might go against industry custom to have a contract that protective for so long. Other Justice League actors have complained about the film too, like Ben Affleck, so I don't think Fisher is violating contract by speaking about Justice League now.

I'm just responding to your speculation that there was some type of clause preventing him from speaking ill about the film. WB stated that Fisher's contract was signed in 2014 and is still active, presumably because whatever number of films he was contracted for haven't happened yet. I have to imagine if there was a clause in the contract preventing him from speaking about anything negative, it's still active.

Again, I don't think anyone here is questioning the reshoots were an unpleasant experience for pretty much everyone involved.

[Prime]

I can't see this ending well for this guy.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

If it's not a legal issue, then Ray should tell us what happened in detail. If it's a legal issue, however, then he should go through the judicial process and stay out of the (dreaded) court of public opinion, IMO.

But it is a legal issue since the aforementioned "disgusting, abusive, and unprofessional behavior" would be protected by an NDA, which is really the whole problem. Hollywood, along with the rest of the rich and powerful, have been allowed to get away with being horrible people while keeping this behavior out of the public using NDAs. It doesn't help that, in addition to the NDAs, almost everyone in Hollywood is afraid of hurting their career if they reveal what they've seen and heard.

What do you think Fisher should have done that he hasn't already done? According to him, he tried doing this through the proper channels and it was being buried. During the production and publicity tour, Fisher fulfilled his contractual obligation, kept his mouth shut about how he really felt, and outright lied about Whedon being a good choice to replace Snyder. I don't blame him for wanting to set the record straight given his own culpability in forwarding the "official" story that WB wanted the public to believe.

Unfortunately, bringing these ugly disputes into the court of public opinion is sometimes the only way to get any traction. Do you think Ellen would have changed her abusive behavior if her employees hadn't made it public?

[kingaliencracker]

But it is a legal issue since the aforementioned "disgusting, abusive, and unprofessional behavior" would be protected by an NDA, which is really the whole problem. Hollywood, along with the rest of the rich and powerful, have been allowed to get away with being horrible people while keeping this behavior out of the public using NDAs. It doesn't help that, in addition to the NDAs, almost everyone in Hollywood is afraid of hurting their career if they reveal what they've seen and heard.

What do you think Fisher should have done that he hasn't already done? According to him, he tried doing this through the proper channels and it was being buried. During the production and publicity tour, Fisher fulfilled his contractual obligation, kept his mouth shut about how he really felt, and outright lied about Whedon being a good choice to replace Snyder. I don't blame him for wanting to set the record straight given his own culpability in forwarding the "official" story that WB wanted the public to believe.

Unfortunately, bringing these ugly disputes into the court of public opinion is sometimes the only way to get any traction. Do you think Ellen would have changed her abusive behavior if her employees hadn't made it public?

So again, this is what I'm going to say with regards to this.

Fisher has gotten WB to open an investigation into his accusations. At this point, if he's not going to articulate specifically what the accusations are due to whatever legalities, then he should stop airing this out on social media altogether. Further, regardless of his reservations about the objectiveness of the investigation it's most definitely in his best interest to cooperate with it. That's not me taking a stand one way or the other - that's someone who deals with this as part of my profession.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

So again, this is what I'm going to say with regards to this.

Fisher has gotten WB to open an investigation into his accusations. At this point, if he's not going to articulate specifically what the accusations are due to whatever legalities, then he should stop airing this out on social media altogether. Further, regardless of his reservations about the objectiveness of the investigation it's most definitely in his best interest to cooperate with it. That's not me taking a stand one way or the other - that's someone who deals with this as part of my profession.

I think there will definitely be a point wherein Fisher goes radio silent about this, either because he's satisfied that the investigation will be truly independent, or because someone he trusts sits him down and explains that he may be doing more harm than good by doing this publicly.

[SecretWarrior]

I can't see this ending well for this guy.

Agreed. Even if he were in the right, I can't see him with a film studio again. He's either going to TV/streaming or back to Broadway.

[kingaliencracker]

I think there will definitely be a point wherein Fisher goes radio silent about this, either because he's satisfied that the investigation will be truly independent, or because someone he trusts sits him down and explains that he may be doing more harm than good by doing this publicly.

The best advice I would give Fisher right now if I could would be to stop posting this on social media, cooperate with the investigation, see what its outcome is, and if he doesn't believe it to be fair or just then he can take additional measures he feels are necessary to obtain whatever outcome he's desiring.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

But it is a legal issue since the aforementioned "disgusting, abusive, and unprofessional behavior" would be protected by an NDA, which is really the whole problem. Hollywood, along with the rest of the rich and powerful, have been allowed to get away with being horrible people while keeping this behavior out of the public using NDAs. It doesn't help that, in addition to the NDAs, almost everyone in Hollywood is afraid of hurting their career if they reveal what they've seen and heard.

What do you think Fisher should have done that he hasn't already done? According to him, he tried doing this through the proper channels and it was being buried. During the production and publicity tour, Fisher fulfilled his contractual obligation, kept his mouth shut about how he really felt, and outright lied about Whedon being a good choice to replace Snyder. I don't blame him for wanting to set the record straight given his own culpability in forwarding the "official" story that WB wanted the public to believe.

Unfortunately, bringing these ugly disputes into the court of public opinion is sometimes the only way to get any traction. Do you think Ellen would have changed her abusive behavior if her employees hadn't made it public?

-cooperate with the 3rd party investigation
-don't tell others to not cooperate with the investigation
-if you aren't going to cooperate don't rage about petty bullshit like microwaves, barbers, getting braggged at for Doom Patrol having it's own Cyborg, someone calling someone else an ******* over the phone. because then you look like a petty bullshitter.

I mean what the hell is this investigation supposed to accomplish if he doesn't want not only himself, but anyone to talk? This isn't NCIS, you can't expect to dig up magic dna or fingerprints of some crap that happened years ago. By far the best bet at finding the truth is for witnesses to tell the truth.
Vaguely complaining to the court of public opinion borders is a half measure at best.

[Lightning Rider]

ItÂ’s even more laughable that Fisher refuses to comment on details of the case yet he pushes those key witnesses out.
1) He is the one who called on WB to raise an investigation. They are following the regular procedures to reach him first instead of the key witness Fisher provides.
2) He posted on Twitter that Warner Media raised an investigation in Aug 21st. Two days later he talked about the contact between him and investigators with his team at the first time. How did he decide the investigation as impartial in less than two days? How did he offer them the witness list before the investigators reach him?

Fisher is explicitly claiming that witnesses that were in contact with the investigator are being ghosted. Not sure what's laughable about that claim.

It's also not exactly regular procedure to claim you're doing an impartial investigation while hiring what's essentially an in-house firm.

It's debatable Fisher is a victim, he never bought the receipts. Those two were in in his vicinity, both are cast members on Justice League - one of which is the lead in the next film Cyborg was supposed to be in. Nobody is saying he needs to go full court press on them but he won't say a single word one way or another, those abuse allegations don't exist in his public context. He risks nothing by saying anything on those incidents right now. That's not a good analogy for Fisher. Abuse thrives in Hollywood by not saying anything, this was what the #MeToo movement was about, it put sunlight on the problem which changed things.

I don't personally know if he's a victim of anything yet, but him not commenting on totally separate contexts of abuse by coworkers is neither here nor there. It's a strange demand to make.

[/QUOTE]

It's not about an activist campaign #MeToo is doing, it's how they went about it in detail that is the process which works. The problem here is that if he wanted to take it legally and keep it quiet all he had to do was wait until he made everything ready then filing a suit. He could get online support after it was launched. But he blew his claim earlier by claiming Whedon abused him, it was just vague on details. He's been going after numerous managers at WB ever since online. We're growing impatient because he's not telling us anything substantial and is doing bizarre things rather than following standard procedure, he's just making it up as he goes along from what it looks like. It's not unreasonable to be skeptical over that.

He did not "blow his claim", nor should he have kept quiet until he filed the suit (if, again, he even plans on filing a suit, which is a costly and complex process that is typically not the first step in seeking restitution from an employer). It's likely he used his vague accusations as leverage to rally support and force concessions from WB. The idea that Fisher has to be specific now for his claims to be valid is simply nonsense. Fans are simply frustrated they don't know what's going on. I am too, but that's separate to whether there's a strategic benefit to saving concrete accusations for later.

[Frontier]

This feels like the biggest mess DC/WB have become embroiled in in quite some time.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Fisher is explicitly claiming that witnesses that were in contact with the investigator are being ghosted. Not sure what's laughable about that claim.

It's also not exactly regular procedure to claim you're doing an impartial investigation while hiring what's essentially an in-house firm.

Isn't Fisher angry about who the investigator is answering too at WB? Companies hiring third parties to do internal investigations is standard procedure.

I don't personally know if he's a victim of anything yet, but him not commenting on totally separate contexts of abuse by coworkers is neither here nor there. It's a strange demand to make.

The post I was replying to revolved around Fisher being a victim. Except He'd already done this before. Fisher commented on allegations by personally boosting John Boyega.

https://twitter.com/ray8fisher/statu...80249945190401

Not the same subject, of course. But alleged physical abuse by his own cast mates are too far to comment on?

Read this!

He did not "blow his claim", nor should he have kept quiet until he filed the suit (if, again, he even plans on filing a suit, which is a costly and complex process that is typically not the first step in seeking restitution from an employer). It's likely he used his vague accusations as leverage to rally support and force concessions from WB. The idea that Fisher has to be specific now for his claims to be valid is simply nonsense. Fans are simply frustrated they don't know what's going on. I am too, but that's separate to whether there's a strategic benefit to saving concrete accusations for later.

He called Whedon an abuser, a very specific word that got this all rolling. It's a massive accusation, which he didn't bring any substance to. There are standard procedures to do these things and Fisher's doing them all at once without any proper planning. This ins't about how we feel, this is about how things work in business. It was very viable for him to be quiet before launching a lawsuit, assuming that's where he's going because if this goes to court everything he says in the media will be used against him by WB. There are many ways to call an employer out, but people don't mix and match them all and expect the same results from them all. This isn't about being a fan, this is about how Fisher is taking the fight to WB about abuse allegations. All of which require specifics, people don't just shout from the rooftops like this without mentioning the incident in basic detail to get supporters on their side, wether it's in the court room or social media. This is how Harvey Weinstein got taken down and he had more power in Hollywood than Joss Whedon.

What's annoying is how Fisher is bringing to light how toxic environments are in Hollywood, but it's getting lost in the abuse allegations so it looks like he thinks all of it is abuse. It's all mixed messages.

Hollywood is due for more change to protect their workers but if anything Fisher's going to make that more difficult for the next person to do it.

[Username taken]

I don't know if we can form any real sound opinion on the accusations because we really don't know what the accusations are. I can tell you from professional experience that people will lie about the most ridiculous things if there's an angle in it for them, but that same experience also tells me that people's accusations are sometimes ignored or dismissed even when they're true.

Here's what I will say about it however...if the reason why we're not being given details by Fisher is because of legal reasons as some here have speculated, then he should stop airing this out on social media altogether. It's also in his best interest to cooperate with the internal investigation whether he has reservations about its objectiveness or not.

I have no doubt the reshoots completed by Whedon were unpleasant for everyone involved. But there's also a difference between a bad work experience versus actual abuse, harassment, threats, etc. in the workplace. Right now we just don't have enough information, and until we do we're just going to speculate endlessly.

Quoted for truth.

I believe Fisher that the experience for everyone during the reshoots was shitty to say the least but calling it “abuse” takes it to a whole new level. And if it could involve legal troubles then he should keep shut until the process is over.

I don’t know much about NDAs but I’m curious about what sort of NDAs cover explicitly abusive situations.